


Seeing Faults

by Merfilly



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-04 21:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14028990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: A shared mission has Barriss in medical, and Ahsoka beating herself up.





	Seeing Faults

**Author's Note:**

> For "theforceandchill" on tumblr! I hope you like it.

Ahsoka Tano couldn't look up from where she was sitting, couldn't make herself look into the medical bay where Barriss Offee was being treated for her injuries. Those injuries, Ahsoka felt, were her fault, for failing to find a way to both complete the mission and protect the older padawan.

It never crossed her mind that Barriss had more experience, more training, that she should have been the primary operative in the mission. All she could see was her failure. She was the one that had faced Ventress before. She knew that the witch was sneaky and underhanded and cruel.

"Ahsoka."

The deep rumble of Plo Koon's voice intruded on the young padawan's self-recrimination. She shifted, resisting the urge to pull her knees up and wrap her arms around them, so that there was room for him to sit beside her.

"Master Plo," she said softly.

He took the offered seat, moving a little stiffly from his own recent injuries. "I am relieved to see you do not appear to be injured," he told her. "Master Fisto said you accompanied Padawan Offee in. He also mentioned that you might need someone that is neither your Master nor hers to speak to."

Instead of reassuring her, that made Ahsoka quail even further. Master Fisto knew how badly she'd messed up; he was the Jedi currently in charge of this med-station. And he'd gone and told Master Plo?

"I'm fine, Master," Ahsoka said, trying hard to make that be real, to not lie to him. She failed, and knew it when he tipped his head that certain way, the tusk parts of his mask flexing slightly.

"Ahsoka, do you realize that you have now, twice, escaped a woman that has killed so many of our army and our own Order? At an age when many are just beginning to feel confident in their skills with a lightsaber, you are strong enough to survive against an opponent Masters hesitate to face."

"But that's just it, Master! I left Barriss to hold her back while I got the hostages out! I know she's not as good as me in 'saber, and I left her to face Ventress, and she got badly hurt and—" 

She had to cut herself off as Plo rested a hand on her shoulder. "Ahsoka, are you certain Barriss had the skills to get past the barriers between your entry point and the hostages? Do you know that she could have handle the multiple droids, to include B2s and one droideka, that you encountered? Are you positive she could have handled all of those aspects, while you dealt with just one part of the mission?"

Ahsoka looked down, considering. "She's more of a negotiator and a healer. We only got assigned to it because our masters were tied down and we were closest," she answered. "She told me she could hold the entry point, but we knew Ventress was coming."

The big hand squeezed, talons rasping slightly on the cloth of her tunic. "She knew your skills were more in line with the mission, and took the portion she was most suited for. People get injured, even when they are good enough to face someone like Ventress. And remember, harsh as it may sound, she survived the first Geonosis battle. That speaks well of her skill and cunning with a lightsaber."

That made Ahsoka reconsider, start seeing the angles. When Geonosis happened the first time, she'd only been an Initiate, and Barriss had been chosen to go with her Master to that trap. So few had come back from it.

"I should have found a better way," she stubbornly insisted. "Barriss got hurt—"

"— because she is a Jedi that lives to the needs of others, the same as you," Plo Koon sternly informed her. "Now, if you are wishing to believe you are capable of doing everything all by yourself, perhaps we should revisit the idea that you are mature enough to be a padawan."

Ahsoka's eyes went wide and she stared up at him in horror at the idea… and then she saw that he was trying to jar her out of her myopic look at events.

"Or, maybe I should meditate on understanding hard choices happen?" she offered, voice quiet and uncertain now.

"That, little one, is the best answer here."


End file.
